What’s New in Allegro EDM

All your design projects consist of many moving parts, with multiple members of various teams providing input and demanding output. Efficiently tracking and managing all aspects of your design improves overall productivity and resource efficiency and provides valuable insights into the design process you can use to run even better teams. The Cadence^® Allegro^® EDM Solution addresses multiple facets of information within engineering and now extends directly to the enterprise and manufacturing.

Release to Manufacturing

The design data created in a PCB is a critical component to the product record. With Allegro EDM’s integrated release-to-manufacturing capability, engineering teams can frequently, accurately, and efficiently update enterprise systems, such as product lifecycle management (PLM). Release to manufacturing obtains the current state of the bill of materials (BOM), variants, design data, and manufacturing deliverables in the context of the corporate PLM workflow, such as the PLM engineering change order (ECO) and release processes with little to no additional work by the engineer. Eliminating the costly time engineers spend manually extracting and uploading data while improving the quality and frequency of the release. The improved collaboration allows better visibility across manufacturing, supply chain, and management reducing time, cost, and risk in the overall process while allowing engineers to focus on innovation.

Engineers Stay Inside Allegro Environment

Executing a successful release of data into the enterprise or manufacturing environment does not need to be a disruptive or time-consuming task. Engineers initiate a release directly from the current project, keeping track of the current project and part numbers, and removing data entry.

Corporate Product Structure and Workflow

Designers are concerned about the technical aspects of the design; however, to have that design realized, engineers may have to create, or know how to map, manufacturing deliverables and BOM into the corporate product structure. Additionally, they must adhere to differences in deliverables based on the current workflow state of the project in PLM. Using a centrally controlled template-driven approach, corporate standards, such as product structure creation, validation rules, and adherence to workflow, are automatically managed for the engineer, removing the guesswork for engineers, enabling adherence to corporate process, and eliminating rework due to missing, incomplete, or incorrect data

Maps to Existing Corporate and Engineering Process

Administrators employ a highly configurable web interface to centrally manage the overall process used by their engineers. The high level of configurability allows administrators to map the existing CAD process into the existing enterprise process, minimizing disruption and reducing training. Administrators can maintain multiple configurations to support the changing needs of the corporate and CAD processes, enabling the needs of an agile enterprise.

Always Up-to-Date Component Selection

When used with EDM Library Management, engineers are kept up to date with all corporate part numbers, attribution, and status. Automating this with a direct connection into PLM reduces the chances engineers will choose invalid parts and virtually removes BOM and component status issues when releasing a design for manufacturing. As the central library directly receives information, librarians no longer need to perform the manual tasks of keeping constantly changing part data fresh—and they may instead focus on providing engineers the quality library components needed.

Integration with Library Management

Libraries are the building blocks of all your designs. Properly managing them is the difference between a strong foundation for your entire business, and a jaw-dropping domino fall leaving a clear path of collapse behind.

Reusable Alternate Footprint Sets

Define compatible alternate footprints in your component library, and improve library consistency with a few clicks. Easily define an alternate set of footprints for a part by viewing and selecting the complete set of footprints used by similar parts.

Complex Part and Model Properties

Define part or model properties as a combination of other properties, such as voltage, tolerance, and value. This enables, for example, a part’s DESCRIPTION to be built from a combination of multiple other properties and when those properties change, DESCRIPTION is updated automatically.

Support for SSL and LDAPS

Ensure the confidentiality and security of your data with SSL technology and support for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol over Secure Sockets Layer (LDAPS).

Release Cycle Support for Manufacturer Part Numbers

Use the database editor to check out, modify, check in, and release manufacturer parts just as you would any other part. Add distribution and development status as well as lifecycle information to manufacturer parts.

Part Check In and Check Out with Hierarchical Linked Models

Save time searching for and checking out the various models associated with parts during the part editing process using hierarchical checkout. After updating the models, check in all of them in one step.

Engineering Data Analytics

Collecting and storing data is not the end goal. You must understand how your data relates, analyze your data, and put those insights to good use to improve every step of the design process.

Multi-Site and Multi-Application Support

Define and manage engineering data used within different business units by separating the web pages used for multiple sites or divisions. KPI metrics can be viewed on the site and business unit levels in addition to companywide. Administrators, groups, and users of enterprises large and small can be common or separated through access permissions to share all the data you want, and none that you don’t.

Dynamic Project Labels

Use project metadata such as project name, schematic revision, schematic number, board revision, or any data of your choice to dynamically label and manage your complete set of project data. Dynamic labels can be reused, making it easy to manage all your labels.

Multi-Board System Design Project Support

Roll up all your data and metrics from multiple projects and workspaces into a single container for increased system-wide visibility and predictability. Seed new systems by selecting individual projects from previous, possibly disparate, systems.

Compare Vendor and Variant Parts Lists 


Choose the right vendor for your project by comparing parts lists from different vendors and assessing a vendor’s ability to supply a complete BOM. Compare multiple design variant BOMs to help optimize cost and availability for your designs.

Data Management Activity Log

Gain insights into your design process by analyzing the change history during a design’s life cycle. Track strategic parts list approvals, who checked-in what and when, what changes they made, which configuration management labels have been used, and a range of other data.

Import Data for Custom Metrics

Manufacturer availability, engineer loading, and pending vacations—there’s so much that affects the progress of a design project that isn’t about the design itself. Import data and visualize custom metrics about your project in your project dashboard.